Is this some sort of remnant of evangelical puritan protestant ideology?
I don’t understaun this.
If you ask me, it’d make as much sense as Orthodox and Christians… or Shia and Muslim…
I know not all Christians are Catholics but for feck’s sake…
They’re all Christians to me…
Edit:
It’s a U.S thing but this is the sort of things I hear…
https://www.gotquestions.org/Catholic-Christian.html
I am a Catholic. Why should I consider becoming a Christian?
I now know more distinctions (apparently Catholicism requires duty and salvation is process, unlike Protestantism?) but I still think they’re of a similar branch (Christianity) so I just wonder the social factor
Growing up in a “non-denominational”, independent fundamental Baptist house I was always taught that Catholics weren’t Christians because they worship idols. Now that I’ve left the faith I would easily classify them as being Christian.
While I think many people actually do classify them as Christians they do have some significant differences in their beliefs and practices than most Protestant denominations; and being themselves the largest Christian denomination by far it can be useful in some analysis to treat them as a distinct entity (the answer to “percentage of global population that subscribe to a particular religion” is much more interesting when broken into “Christian Catholic: %” and “Christian Other: %”).
If anything Catholicism is much more traditionally Christian, as it’s the stablished status quo outside of the anglosphere.
Oh shit! Independent Fundamental Baptist! I had to deal with living with that shit, too. At the end of the day, if the king james bible was good enough for Peter and Paul, it’s good enough for me. Also, rock music is the devil.
I went to Bob Jones. There was a kid there got in trouble playing the guitar cause what he was strumming had “that sound.” No lyrics, just him strumming it wrong was sinful. Ain’t no way that kinda teaching gonna fuck someone up for life.
In this context it was meant as a joke. Several Baptist institutions incorrectly label themselves as being “non-denominational” even though they are completely ideologically aligned with the independent Baptist movement.
There’s plenty of great commentary here about why Christianity is divided up into different sects, but I think you’re primarily interested in the narcissism of small differences. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences)
Basically, if you’ve read about Dr. Suess’ Starbellied Sneeches, you get the idea. Human brains are exceptional pattern recognition machines, and when a society is so homogenously Christian then those small differences become the cleavages along which identities form. That leads to things like Catholic / Christian divisions and the formation of the best joke in The Guardian history:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion
They all generally affirm the same things though, it’s just the Bible doesn’t say exactly how to practice Christianity, so add two thousand years and weird theological technicalities like real presence (and how much real is the presence, it’s a spectrum), church structure and organisation, authority, etc, then you have a bunch of different denominations. Most of them though do actually respect each other in an ecumenical fashion. The “Catholics aren’t Christian” sect would be a fringe minority, the same type who would believe the world is 8,000 years old and that the KJV is the only proper English translation.
All the big (and probably small) schisms happened primarily for political reasons (i.e. material interests, power struggles). It’s just that lots of other issues (including small differences) tend to align themselves along the same lines, because I guess that helps with the polarization. Doesn’t mean this “narcissism of small differences” doesn’t exist, just that it’s not the cause, but rather part of the dynamic.
With all due respect, this is not reflective of the protestant revival movement in the US in the 1800s. The second awakening was absolutely a bunch of rival interpretations of the word claiming they were right b/c (insert reason here).
I probably should have been more specific in my original reply but when we’re taking about US “Catholics aren’t Christians” that’s 100 percent the origin of the trope. I can’t speak to the Irish version but I’d challenge anyone about it in the US. That’s why we needed an Ecumenism movement in the first place after all.
If you are curious look up the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and his 99 Theses.
I’m paraphrasing and my thoughts on what I experienced this but it came down more to the idea that Catholics worship the pope and the saints more than god and jesus. If you were the leader of a nation that called themselves Catholic you could find the Pope telling you what to do when it came to war and if you declared war on another Catholic country the Pope could tell you to stop or to declare peace. To not do so was in danger of having all other Catholic nations declare war.
Not to mention the many saints you are required to pray to, Purgatory and praying for the dead, all of the rituals, services in Latin, worship of the virgin mother, the schism that split the church between two Popes who excommunicated each other, etc.
Protestantism did away with all of that. No single leader, the ability to create different sects that didn’t make you an apostate of the church, etc. Now don’t get me wrong even the same sect don’t always believe the exact same things and it can get pretty nit-picky, but Protestantisn can change with the times more easily than Catholicism can.
The goal was to make less of a ritual cult like Catholicism had become, and more of a focus on the meaning of the the actions of jesus, being able to actually get to heaven without all of the pomp and circumstance that really meant nothing, and all that crap.
The worry is the President would be more loyal to the other Catholics than the rest of the nation and would be bound by cult rules than the will of the people.
Ironically enough right now it’s the Catholic President trying to stop rights from being taken away while there are both Protestants and Catholics in the Supreme Court and other facets of the government that are working so hard to do the opposite.
And yet what a actually happened is that Catholics ended up generally more liberal and Protestants ended up becoming evangelicals and causing a lot of the problems currently faced in, for example, the US.
Edit’ Catholicism continues to try to bleed any kind of support by protecting pedophiles in case you feel like I am being too lenient toward Catholicism.
Evangelicals are an almost entirely US phenomenon. In the rest of the world, Protestant countries like Germany and the UK are more liberal than Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy. For example, Italy “legalised” abortion in 1978 but the vast majority of gynaecologists refuse to perform them on religious grounds. Ireland didn’t legalise until… 2019!
Lol at UK being more liberal than Ireland! Yes in terms of their abortion laws they were very behind until recently, but in every other way I can think of Ireland has been way more progressive. UK politics meanwhile (driven by middle England Sun readers) busy trying to brexit ourselves back to the spirit of the blitz or something. Can’t wait to get my blue passport, God save the king!
Evangelicals tend to not like mainline Protestants for being too liberal, the mainline Protestants are a lot less noisy and also traditionally better connected. Mainline Protestant conservatives have had no problem courting evangelicals historically though, which is one reason they’re in the situation they are now. Mainline Protestant conservative gives you a traditional stuffy republican politician, evangelical gives you MTG.
that has more to do with evangelicals and events some catholics got conned by corporate interests in the early 30s in response to what FDR was doing with the new deal and the sweeping socialist thinking going around in churches at that time. read up on James W. Fifield Jr and NAM ( National Association of Manufacturers) you will see the destruction of US churches and the rise of the mega church and the 700 club.
Possibly generally more liberal but my personal anecdote as a raised Catholic- now non Christian , is that Catholics are only marginally less crazy than evangelicals. All Catholics I know are super conservative.
Edit: I know Biden identifies as Catholic and I’m not claiming my personal experience is comprehensive. Biden is the only Pro-Choice Catholic I’ve ever known of. Most people I know don’t even consider Biden a true Catholic because of his stances.
Huh? There have always sects of Protestantism that were more conservative, but by-and-large Catholicism is against birth control, abortion, homosexuality (maybe not this pope, with homosexuality) but trans rights, priests marrying, women worship leaders, etc. Sure not one Protestant sect is going to allow everything, but growing up Catholic and then converting to Lutheranism they didn’t have a problem with birth control, pastors having families and stuff.
And that not mentioning the more liberal small churches that didn’t had exceptions to everything.
Don’t get me wrong, they all have a long way to go still. They all teach we are all god’s children but then immediately backpedal
some sort of remnant of evangelical puritan protestant ideology?
Yes. It’s weird.
It’s because Protestantism is the dominant form of Christianity in cultures where this language convention exists, and it is a deliberate tactic to other Catholics by labeling them non-Christian. Especially in previous times, Catholics were subject to large amounts of discrimination and antagonism by Protestants, and we’re still dealing with the remnants of this ideology today. I think the only reason it has subsided is the rise of secularism and other more foreign religions that are seen as a greater threat by Christians, forcing them into an uneasy alliance with their former enemies. But remember that tons of Christians used to murder each other over which sect they belonged to.
Interestingly, in Central America, the opposite convention exists, where you are either “Cristiano”, meaning Catholic, or “Evangelico”, meaning Protestant (usually Pentecostal). This is because the dominant group is reversed in that society.
Personally, I view Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as three branches of one religion since they are clearly very similar. But that is the view of an outsider.
I view Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as three branches of one religion since they are clearly very similar. But that is the view of an outsider.
nah, they’re grouped together under the umbrella of “Abrahamic religions”, and at least muslims regard the other two as “people of the book”.
obv your mileage may vary from person to person, I’m not saying the terrorist idiots don’t call people infidel left right and center don’t exist, but people who are a bit better than that generally see christians and jews as peers.
Don’t forget the Baha’i, the Babs, and the Druze. Don’t know if they’re considered people of the book or not. Same with the Samaritan Israelites
I’ll just copy paste Wikipedia since it’s actually pretty good here:
In the Quran [the people of the book] are identified as the Jews, the Christians, the Sabians, and—according to some interpretations—the Zoroastrians. Starting from the 8th century, some Muslims also recognized other religious groups such as the Samaritans, and even Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains
We don’t actually know who the Sabians were, though there are a few theories.
Don’t forget Catholicism spent centuries converting with a sword and their missionairies destroyed all remnants of native cultures history once they were converted. That’s an awful lot of discrimination from Catholics.
Of course. This was written from the perspective of the English-speaking world, so I primarily focused on Protestant discrimination against Catholics, because that was the norm for several centuries. But as I alluded to in the last section, in predominantly Catholic areas, the situation was about the inverse and similar campaigns were waged against Protestants.
